Khal Drogo vs Sandor Clegane

[The OTHER other]

The hound would win 99 out of 100. The bow is all but useless vs plate, at least heavy plate. You would have to basically be close enough for someone with a sword to get to you in order to have a chance to pierce it. This is why crossbows ended up replacing bows, because crossbows could actually punch through plate.

That leaves his arakh. Which frankly would have sucked versus plate and a broadsword. He would have a chance against someone that was fairly in experienced, but lets face it the Hound knows how to fight.

The bow useless against plate? Absolutely false. Ever heard of Agincourt?

The armor of the French knights of the time was among the heaviest in history; they were MOWED DOWN in the thousands by British longbows, French chivalry never recovered.

Crossbows became popular because they were easier to learn to use than a bow (the crossbow fires exactly the same distance each time due to uniform draw strength) not because of greater strength. There were crossbows which were more powerful and required a winch to draw but they were less common, most were smaller and had reasonably equivalent strength to a bow. Lords of the era complained about the crossbow not because it was too powerful but because it was too democratic--any common person could learn to use the weapon with reasonable accuracy with little training, whereas while an archer might be common at least he would take years to develop shooting skills.

Really people should read some history and learn some facts before forming opinions, this and the nonsense about folding steel to make it lighter is absurd. If you fold paper is it lighter?

[Nymeria7373]

We know little to nothing of Drogo's fighting style.

If we assume that Drogo's fighting style is similar to the Persians', which the Dothraki were likely based off of, and they each had their horses and choice of weapons? Drogo trumps Sandor, every time. Either Drogo would simply shoot Sandor in a weak spot in his armor, which with a longbow he could certainly do, or they would charge each other, Drogo would avoid Sandor's lance or sword swing, and he would severely disable or kill Sandor as the ride past each other. Broadswords and lances are extremely hard to wield quickly. Sandor would likely not be able to block Drogo's first strike. And from there on, he's disabled, allowing Drogo the advantage.

Also, Drogo is the better horseman and could likely get his horse to dance away from attacks, tiring and frustrating Sandor. The only thing which could give Sandor the victory would be his sheer rage when he's being beaten in a fight, as we see in his fight with Beric Dondarrion.

[Alexia]

We know little to nothing of Drogo's fighting style.

If we assume that Drogo's fighting style is similar to the Persians', which the Dothraki were likely based off of, and they each had their horses and choice of weapons? Drogo trumps Sandor, every time. Either Drogo would simply shoot Sandor in a weak spot in his armor, which with a longbow he could certainly do, or they would charge each other, Drogo would avoid Sandor's lance or sword swing, and he would severely disable or kill Sandor as the ride past each other. Broadswords and lances are extremely hard to wield quickly. Sandor would likely not be able to block Drogo's first strike. And from there on, he's disabled, allowing Drogo the advantage.

Also, Drogo is the better horseman and could likely get his horse to dance away from attacks, tiring and frustrating Sandor. The only thing which could give Sandor the victory would be his sheer rage when he's being beaten in a fight, as we see in his fight with Beric Dondarrion.

The OP took his bow and horse away though. And Sandor is considered to be a very quick and savage warrior. With his bow and horse Drogo would probably win, without them he's lunch.

[Lesionaire]

The bow useless against plate? Absolutely false. Ever heard of Agincourt?

The armor of the French knights of the time was among the heaviest in history; they were MOWED DOWN in the thousands by British longbows, French chivalry never recovered.

Crossbows became popular because they were easier to learn to use than a bow (the crossbow fires exactly the same distance each time due to uniform draw strength) not because of greater strength. There were crossbows which were more powerful and required a winch to draw but they were less common, most were smaller and had reasonably equivalent strength to a bow. Lords of the era complained about the crossbow not because it was too powerful but because it was too democratic--any common person could learn to use the weapon with reasonable accuracy with little training, whereas while an archer might be common at least he would take years to develop shooting skills.

Really people should read some history and learn some facts before forming opinions, this and the nonsense about folding steel to make it lighter is absurd. If you fold paper is it lighter?

Yeah, Agincourt ... the archers did not shoot and penetrate the armor of knights. They killed the horses from under the knights. The knights fell down in the mud and struggled to rise, as would any man who just fell off a dying horse into thick mud. The archers and foot soldiers then rushed the incapacitated knights and killed them with melee weapons. All that shows is that arrows could kill or incapacitate an unarmored horse.

Don't demand others to "know the facts" when you conveniently leave out the details that don't support your angle

[chill]

it should also be noted that drogo would probably use a horse bow, not a longbow

[AquariumDrinker]

We know little to nothing of Drogo's fighting style.

Either Drogo would simply shoot Sandor in a weak spot in his armor....

If you would read the OP, you would notice that it said afoot and no bows. That is what I am basing my comments on. You take away all of Drogos strengths and leave all of Sandors and of course Sandor wins.

[AquariumDrinker]

The bow useless against plate? Absolutely false. Ever heard of Agincourt?

The armor of the French knights of the time was among the heaviest in history; they were MOWED DOWN in the thousands by British longbows, French chivalry never recovered.

That was as much terrain and poor tactics on the part of the French as the strengths of the long bow.

***ETA***

I just wanted to add that we don't know the technology of the armor of Westeros, but eventually the armor that was worn at the time of Agincourt was replace with tempered armor that was much higher in quality and is a lot closer to being long bow proof. It appeared on Italian mercenaries 9 years after the Agincourt at the battle of Verneuil.

[Nymeria7373]

The OP took his bow and horse away though. And Sandor is considered to be a very quick and savage warrior. With his bow and horse Drogo would probably win, without them he's lunch.

Fair enough. Still, evidence points to Drogo being quicker than Sandor would have been. Plus, looking at the last few books, odds are that Sandor would be drunk, granting Drogo an easy victory.

[AquariumDrinker]

Fair enough. Still, evidence points to Drogo being quicker than Sandor would have been. Plus, looking at the last few books, odds are that Sandor would be drunk, granting Drogo an easy victory.

In the last few books, Drogo was dead.

[Alexia]

And drunk, Sandor Clegane fought against two very competent fighters and won. Which goes to show how deadly he is with a sword; he didn't earn that reputation of his doing nothing. Everyone is afraid of him.

And he doesn't usually get drunk when he knows he's about to fight.

[Forve]

he didn't earn that reputation of his doing nothing. Everyone is afraid of him.

same can be said about Drogo if no even more.

[u2vox82]

Drogo rules!

[Kittyhat]

Many of you seem to forget two very important things.

The disadvantages of armor:

• Other fighter can just dance around you
  
• Vision slits in helmets are very small, decreasing visibility
  
• You tire easily
  
• Armor is very heavy, limiting movement
  

These are all myths.

In fact, a suit of full plate meant for actual battle use weighed around 45 pounds, with the weight evenly distributed. It was also surprisingly flexible.

You can do gymnastic floor exercises (cartwheels, handsprings, etc.) in full plate armor. You can vault into a saddle in full plate armor. You can even swim in full plate armor (not terribly easily, but it can be done).

At the same time, plate was functionally swordproof. Slashing against it was almost entirely useless. The two ways to kill a person clad in plate armor with a weapon in plate armor were either to go for the joints with a piercing weapon, particularly using half-sword techniques (especially with an estoc) or a dagger, or else just bashing the soft person through plate using a bludgeoning weapon like a hammer, which still wouldn't destroy the armor itself ... but shock carries through, with potentially devastating results on a solid hit.

Someone brought up katanas in here ... of course. Thanks for that, Hollywood. Actually, a katana would be a terrible weapon for fighting plate, as it's optimized for slashing, the worst way to attack plate. You could use it half-sword to thrust at the joints, but a European longsword is superior for this purpose (straight vs. curved blade and generally a deal longer), in addition to having a pommel better suited to reversing and bashing (again, blunt trauma).

Bottom line, Europeans were frequently facing this armor (once it came into use anyway) and therefore developing weapons to combat it. The Japanese simply weren't for the most part (though they occasionally got hold of European armor), and their own armor was, to be perfectly honest, inferior.

Being unarmored was never an advantage in an actual fight versus being armored. Whatever speed and mobility you lost was utterly negligible, while the gain in protection was massive.

[DireLlama]

These are all myths.

In fact, a suit of full plate meant for actual battle use weighed around 45 pounds, with the weight evenly distributed. It was also surprisingly flexible.

You can do gymnastic floor exercises (cartwheels, handsprings, etc.) in full plate armor. You can vault into a saddle in full plate armor. You can even swim in full plate armor (not terribly easily, but it can be done).

At the same time, plate was functionally swordproof. Slashing against it was almost entirely useless. The two ways to kill a person clad in plate armor with a weapon in plate armor were either to go for the joints with a piercing weapon, particularly using half-sword techniques (especially with an estoc) or a dagger, or else just bashing the soft person through plate using a bludgeoning weapon like a hammer, which still wouldn't destroy the armor itself ... but shock carries through, with potentially devastating results on a solid hit.

Someone brought up katanas in here ... of course. Thanks for that, Hollywood. Actually, a katana would be a terrible weapon for fighting plate, as it's optimized for slashing, the worst way to attack plate. You could use it half-sword to thrust at the joints, but a European longsword is superior for this purpose (straight vs. curved blade and generally a deal longer), in addition to having a pommel better suited to reversing and bashing (again, blunt trauma).

Bottom line, Europeans were frequently facing this armor (once it came into use anyway) and therefore developing weapons to combat it. The Japanese simply weren't for the most part (though they occasionally got hold of European armor), and their own armor was, to be perfectly honest, inferior.

Being unarmored was never an advantage in an actual fight versus being armored. Whatever speed and mobility you lost was utterly negligible, while the gain in protection was massive.

Exactly this.

And to continue the quest against misinformation, far too many people seem to have the impression that not just the armour, but also Medieval European swords were heavy and cumbersome. In fact, even the largest 6 foot long two handed swords were perfectly balanced and rarely weighed more than about 6 lbs. Most were more in the region of 4 lbs. Single handed arming swords were closer to 2 lbs.

This is a great article on the topic.

[littlespider]

Wait, so you're saying that Drogo is a samurai? Sweet!

In all seriousness, I think it'd be an extremely close fight. I would say, though, that there are a couple of ways that a curved arakh might make a difference. If the Hound decided to don the full plate armor, and I was Drogo, I would go for the backs of the knees or thighs. Even in giant suits of mid-16th century plate, where the guy is basically as sealed up as a tin can, the backs of his knees, upper legs, and inner thighs are sometimes open so he can move.

I was always curious about why so many knights in Malory fall victim to dangerous and often fatal upper thigh and/or groin area wounds. I checked out a museum armor exhibition recently, and it looks like this is the area that's the least well-protected. A guy can't wear plate or chain mail down there and still sit a horse, and he's got to have some flexibility to move on the ground quickly, so this is where they were most vulnerable usually. Depends on how far back the cuisses go. Other joints, like the elbows, are encased pretty tightly, and the armpits are usually protected by chain mail worn under the plate.

So if I were Drogo, and I could get close enough with my arakh (a potentially difficult thing to do) I'd hook 'im around the back of the leg or inner leg with my arakh and slash and hope I busted a femoral artery.

But then I'd cry because the Hound is one of my favorite characters.

[LordBloodravenI]

Sandir wins, hands down. Drogo is only we'd to fighting other Dothraki, none of his weapons have ever been tested against armor. As for thhe theory that Drogo would dance around Sandpr like Bronn, remember that this isn't Bronn, it's Khal Drogo. Drogo would most likely rush straight at Sandor.

[Ahmrogar]

If an arakh is very sharp, it most surely would be able to cut through plate. A Zantetsuken (type of Japanese sword used by samurais) is quite capable of cutting through plate, although I believe Valyrian swords are the closest thing to a samurai sword in ASOIAF. We only have an idea of what we think arakhs are based off of a short little description in one of the books, but I too think of it as sort of a long, curved scimitar. But the thing about plate is that is has weak spots. Under the arms, behind the knees, and possibly the neck.

As the weight of the armor will begin to wear the fighter down, so too would as you said yourself a HEAVY broadsword. Swings would get slower, more clumsy, and less powerful until eventually you couldn't swing anymore. Armor was worn because it protected the soft and frail body of a human from direct cuts and stabs that skin can not block. That is it's only "pro" and the cons far outweigh the pro's. Why do you think that no one wears armor anymore? Fighting in close quarters (shoulder to shoulder with those around you) as was the style of battle for a very long time, armor helps a ton. In a duel; however, it is very impractical.

Its not hollywood, its very much real. It used to be common knowledge, but living in the sort of suburbia society we do today, we have forgotten much of that. You go out, throw on over 100 pounds of steel over your body, grab one of those heavy broadswords, and start swinging the sword. Maybe even try running for a bit, jumping around, dodging invisible swords. Basically, duel yourself. See what that weight does to you over time versus someone in normal garb or leather that can dance around all day.

I would think it was not the blade itself that broke the boulder, but the weight and the force coming down on the boulder. I haven't cut any boulders in two, but I have been able to smash a few rocks with a sledgehammer.

Sorry to sound harsh, but, you don't know what you are talking about.

Cutting through plate is a ridiculous idea, with pretty much any sword, and even more so with a Japanese sword. Katanas and their like generally have very wide blade and are made for slicing movements, they are great for slashing through muscle and flesh, bamboo and cloth too, but they would have armour-piercing abilities close to zero. Even European swords vgenerally lacked effective armour piercing capabilities, and they knew how to fight armour.

Also as for Drogo V Sandor (or anyone fighting an armoured foe) sure, if you KNOW there are weakpoints to exploit you can. But, at least as we've seen, (especially in the last book) a lot of people dismiss armour as weak and cowardly and don't bother to learn about it. The examples of Bronn and Oberyn are both from Westerosi culture, which has a lot of experience in the wearing of and fighting plate and armour. Both Bronn and Oberyn know where the weakpoints are and how to exploit them.

And yet both the Bronn duel and the Prince Oberyn duel were in enclosed spaces. Its almost impossible to close someone in when they can just dance around behind you. If they are good, they wouldn't let themselves get boxed in. (Think of boxing, the modern day duel)

You won't always be face to face like in that game we all used to be play when we were kids where you'd have two figures hitting each other and until one of the figure's heads pops out. The advantage a smaller, quicker fighter has over a big man weighed down by armor is that he can just dance behind, make a quick cut, dance out, move around again, etc. It sounds to me like you need to go back and reread those two duels to really grasp the concept.

You wouldn't need to ask why we have armor if you had read through my whole post. I'll paste it into here for you.

StarkofWinterfell said:

Armor was worn because it protected the soft and frail body of a human from direct cuts and stabs that skin can not block. That is it's only "pro" and the cons far outweigh the pro's. Why do you think that no one wears armor anymore? When you're fighting in close quarters (shoulder to shoulder with those around you) as was the style of battle for a very long time, armor helps a ton because those battles just used to be a steel chaos. In a duel; however, it is very impractical.

There's a trade off. You have much less margin of error if you're fighting without armour, literally one mistake and you are toast, not so if you have armour protecting you. Likewise if you are armoured you might suffer a general disadvantage, but you have a lot of safety in case of something unexpected, a larger margin of error.

In any case the main feature of Oberyn's fight was not just that he was fast, but that he outranged Gregor.

I do have a source. Its a video of someone witha samurai sword cutting through a thick piece of bamboo, a steel pipe, and steel plate. Clean cuts, straight through. Youtube has it under "Samurai Challenge! Samurai Sword ( Katana ) Cutting Steel Pipe & Steel Plate -Zantetsuken-"

Gun powder? Quality steel can block the impact of most caliber rounds, though not all. Gun powder has very little to do with why plate armor is no longer worn, but is partly the reason. Kevlar is an armor and it is still worn.

The first case looks like an invalid example for me, none of those things are actually made to resist impact like armour was.

Watch youtube clips of muskets or arquebuses against armour. The bullets go through the front and generally richochet off the backplating of the armour to hit the interior again, bouncing through the body until they run out of momentum. Even if the armour does block the initial impact, it generally deforms such and transmits the energy so that the person inside would be seriously injured if not killed.

The bow useless against plate? Absolutely false. Ever heard of Agincourt?

The armor of the French knights of the time was among the heaviest in history; they were MOWED DOWN in the thousands by British longbows, French chivalry never recovered.

False. There was no "MOWING DOWN" whatsoever.

A slew of modern interpretations have terrain factors including the mud beign far more signifigant, and definitely downgrade the armour piercing capacity of the longbow.

You see, a longbow can only really pierce armour within a range of about twenty metres (due to physics: air resistance slows the arrow down too much past this point) and even then in the process of piercing armour the arrow loses most of if not all of its killing power.

At past twenty metres the arrow is more likely to bound off than penetrate at all.

Really people should read some history and learn some facts before forming opinions, this and the nonsense about folding steel to make it lighter is absurd. If you fold paper is it lighter?

Folding is made to give strength, not make it lighter. You fold low and high carbon iron whilst forging to create an alloy that is stronger than either individually, look up pattern welding. While the Japanese are famous for it, most europeans did it better and earlier (BC as opposed to AD)

These are all myths.

In fact, a suit of full plate meant for actual battle use weighed around 45 pounds, with the weight evenly distributed. It was also surprisingly flexible.

You can do gymnastic floor exercises (cartwheels, handsprings, etc.) in full plate armor. You can vault into a saddle in full plate armor. You can even swim in full plate armor (not terribly easily, but it can be done).

At the same time, plate was functionally swordproof. Slashing against it was almost entirely useless. The two ways to kill a person clad in plate armor with a weapon in plate armor were either to go for the joints with a piercing weapon, particularly using half-sword techniques (especially with an estoc) or a dagger, or else just bashing the soft person through plate using a bludgeoning weapon like a hammer, which still wouldn't destroy the armor itself ... but shock carries through, with potentially devastating results on a solid hit.

Someone brought up katanas in here ... of course. Thanks for that, Hollywood. Actually, a katana would be a terrible weapon for fighting plate, as it's optimized for slashing, the worst way to attack plate. You could use it half-sword to thrust at the joints, but a European longsword is superior for this purpose (straight vs. curved blade and generally a deal longer), in addition to having a pommel better suited to reversing and bashing (again, blunt trauma).

Bottom line, Europeans were frequently facing this armor (once it came into use anyway) and therefore developing weapons to combat it. The Japanese simply weren't for the most part (though they occasionally got hold of European armor), and their own armor was, to be perfectly honest, inferior.

Being unarmored was never an advantage in an actual fight versus being armored. Whatever speed and mobility you lost was utterly negligible, while the gain in protection was massive.

Agreed. And +reps, I commend your clarity and accuracy.

Basically, I'd think Drogo is a perfectly good (likely great) fighter. For his people and his purposes. But the Dothraki don't know how to fight Westerosi, and I don't see Drogo just being able to figure out the weaknesses of an armoured man. Even so, he'd probably be able to best many due to his natural fighting skill.

Putting him up against the Hound though? A candidate for the best swordsman in Westeros?

Realisitcally I'd say the Hound has a good chance of facing Drogo any day of the weak. I've always seen him as about as big and strong (if not stronger) as Drogo and on top of that we know he's both fast and fierce, putting him in armour tilts the scales toward him as I really can't see Drogo effectively fighting it, while Sandor would know the ropes.

[Black Amethyst]

I don't think there is much of a contest between those two. It would go solidly to Sandor because of all the things mentioned. He's got superior armour and discipline. I don't believe Drogo's sword skill would be a match. The only way he would win would be if he lit Sandor on fire.

[Suldog]

This thread makes me so sad that Sandor is essentially crippled now.

[Hnim]

The bow useless against plate? Absolutely false. Ever heard of Agincourt?

The armor of the French knights of the time was among the heaviest in history; they were MOWED DOWN in the thousands by British longbows, French chivalry never recovered.

100% completely false.